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A Massachusetts senator will introduce a bill to Congress blocking the ability to fight anti-Russian sanctions with the help of crypto assets.
Elizabeth Warren, in the text of her draft, proposes requiring US cryptocurrency exchanges and financial institutions to provide the US Treasury with detailed information about customer identities and transfers of funds to private cryptocurrency wallets.
Warren says her bill will prevent Russian authorities and others from using digital assets to circumvent economic sanctions. According to media reports, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Agency (FinCEN) is also working on developing similar requirements.
The Warren bill also implies that companies will have to choose between doing business in the US and serving sanctioned individuals. Recently, the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange said that it is not going to impose a complete ban on Russian users, but it will be forced to freeze their accounts if there is a legal requirement.
Elizabeth Warren was among the senators who last week sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen about tightening regulation of cryptocurrencies. They asked the Ministry of Finance for information on what actions the department is taking to complicate the use of cryptocurrencies for countries from the sanctions list.
Warren has long been skeptical of the crypto industry. Last year, the senator said that stablecoins and DeFi protocols pose a threat to the American economy.
Recently, US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and several members of the US House of Representatives also called for faster regulation of the industry.
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